


We Are Queens

by scribblemyname



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29026908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: The gods give. The gods take away. Eugenides was never the only one chosen.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene & Eddis | Helen, Background Attolia | Irene/Eugenides
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	We Are Queens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theseourbodies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/gifts).



> Betaed by the lovely Enisy, any remaining mistakes are mine

The gods give. The gods take away. Eugenides was never the only one chosen.

* * *

Eddis remembers poison in her ear, venom and fierceness on the tongue of the visiting queen of Attolia. She remembers that this was that queen trying to be _helpful._ It's something that's stayed in her memory ever since.

She remembers her favorite cousin running, chased by others of their relatives of age. Remembers when he first entered the world of losing and taking blood.

It pales next to Eugenides feverish and clutching the stump of his lost hand. Everything pales next to that.

"War then."

* * *

The gods give. Hamiathes' Gift. The Thief of Eddis. Visions of the end of a country in the fires of the sacred mountain.

The gods take away.

_"They'd start by calling you Eddia and then Sounia, and if the Medes didn't come they would 'forget' you ever were Eddis."_

_"I've always known I was the last Eddis."_

Her Thief. Her mountains. Her country.

* * *

They are vulpine. They are wolves of the same pack, and they smile, recognizing each other. Attolia's is the harshness born of taking her country with blood and poison, buying it with all her gold and any young tenderness she once possessed, and _holding_. Eddis' is the harshness of her high, unforgiving mountains—a country held by subterfuge, trade, and a very precise form of diplomacy with knife, sword, and cannon behind it, waiting in the wings. She is loved by her people, but her country remains a wanted land, and so she too has held it, knowing in the end she must let it go.

She remembers Irene, a young vicious queen at her coronation, instructing her in how to hold a country that will not otherwise respect a queen. She remembers those vicious words in her ear and sees how Attolia has shaped its queen.

And yet, when they stand up as the embodiment of their peoples, as Eddis and Attolia, there is something alike in them because they are _queens_ , and they will save their countries, no matter what hellbent enemy stands in their way.

* * *

"The barons would destroy Attolia if I let them," Irene admits, standing beside Helen, looking out on the gardens. "Your barons unite behind you." Her mouth tightens. She almost asks how Helen does it.

Helen runs a hand lightly over the balustrade. She has openly shared with Eugenides, with Sophos, but she has not previously told her fellow queen the burden hovering over Eddis' final monarch.

"Moira has sent me visions of the sacred mountain exploding in fire."

Irene's face goes from still to stiff. Irene believes in the gods, for all she does not worship them. "So that's what this is about," she finally says.

Helen merely smiles faintly. "I am thankful for our alliance. In the end, my country may be lost, but my people will be saved."

She will lose those faithful barons, for she is the last Eddis and they are its last barons.

* * *

The gods give. The gods take away. Eugenides was never the only one chosen.

Who but Attolia could have held her country through plague, through intrigue, and through the first incursions of the Medes? Who but Eddis could arrange the transition of her country to being part of Sounis?

Who but Eugenides could both of them love enough to do it?

They are queens.


End file.
